Wadsworth teen sentenced to life in prison for strangulation death of elderly neighbor

Stephanie Warsmith Beacon Journal/Ohio.com @SWarsmithABJ

Friday

Jan 4, 2019 at 11:35 AMJan 4, 2019 at 11:48 AM

MEDINA Seventeen-year-old Gavon Ramsay sneaked into his 98-year-old neighbor’s house through an unlocked door and took video of her sleeping on the couch.

MEDINA Seventeen-year-old Gavon Ramsay sneaked into his 98-year-old neighbor’s house through an unlocked door and took video of her sleeping on the couch.

Wearing plastic gloves, the Wadsworth teen strangled Margaret Douglas until she took her last breath and then spent two hours taking more videos and photographs of her corpse, including several of a sexual nature.

He then stuffed her body in a small closet, covered her with clothes and a vacuum cleaner and returned to his home five doors down before his parents awoke at 5 a.m.

These were among the brutal details of Douglas’ April 6 death that Medina County Common Pleas Judge Joyce Kimbler pointed to Thursday when she sentenced Ramsay to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Because of his age, this was the maximum possible sentence.

Kimbler said she found Ramsay to be “irreparably corrupt” and “unfit to reenter society.”

“This crime was depraved and premeditated and of a nature not previously seen in this community,” the judge said.

Ramsay showed little emotion when Kimbler announced her decision after a long and emotional court hearing that included testimony from the teen’s parents — who blame his actions on mis-prescribed prescription drugs. Stephen Ramsay, his father, wiped tears from his eyes in the back of the courtroom.

Ramsay plans to appeal.

Ramsay pleaded no contest and was found guilty in November of all of the charges against him, which included aggravated murder, murder, aggravated burglary, kidnapping and gross abuse of a corpse. He was automatically bound over from juvenile to adult court because of the severity of the charges, but didn’t face the death penalty because he was under 18.

Media and loved ones of both Ramsay and Douglas packed the courtroom Thursday for the sentencing. The hearing lasted 4½ hours, with Kimbler hearing from witnesses called by both sides in a rare mitigation hearing requested by Ramsay’s attorney.

Lynne Luna Jones, the chief forensic psychologist for the Psycho-Diagnostic Clinic who performed a court-ordered evaluation of Ramsay in November, testified that she diagnosed the teen with seven disorders. This included conduct disorder and sexual sadism disorder. She deemed his prognosis for rehabilitation “guarded,” which is in the middle of a spectrum in which "poor" is worst and “good” is best.

Jones concluded that Ramsay’s aggressive behaviors have increased, he doesn’t appear to want to change his behavior and he shows a “callous disregard for the harm he causes.” She recommended he undergo individual counseling, sex offender treatment and substance abuse treatment.

Christine Ramsay, Ramsay’s mother, however, tried to provide a more personal look at her son’s struggles when she took the stand. She acknowledged that her son has been in and out of trouble and counseling for the past 10 years. She said he returned to therapy last January after his school principal reported the teen was depressed and might harm himself.

Christine said the psychologist recommended that her son be put on medication, and the family’s pediatrician prescribed the antidepressant Zoloft. From January through March, she said, the pediatrician increased the amount of the drug the teen was taking.

During this time, Christine said she observed her son’s behavior change, with him becoming increasingly irritable and hostile and saying bizarre things.

Christine said she continued taking her son to counseling but didn’t know what else to do. After his arrest, she said she researched Zoloft and discovered the drug isn’t recommended to treat depression in juveniles. She contacted the pediatrician and had her son taken off the drug.

“If I could change one thing, I would never have agreed to put my son on Zoloft,” she said, getting teary.

Listening to his mother, Gavon Ramsay sniffled and became teary, the most emotion he showed during the hearing. Most of the time, he stared straight ahead or sat with his eyes downcast. That included when he listened to remarks from Cindy and Patricia Leasure, the niece and great-niece of Douglas.

Cindy Leasure described her aunt as an active 98-year-old who loved reading, gardening and still handled her own finances. She said Douglas was looking forward to turning 100 and everyone expected her to make it to that age.

Cindy and her husband, Howard, found Douglas’ body when police asked them to check on the house.

“I can’t even describe in words the horror that was,” Cindy Leasure said.

Patricia Leasure called Gavon Ramsay a coward who preyed on someone more vulnerable. She thinks he used her great-aunt as a warmup for the others he had written in a notebook that he wanted to kill.

“He is not safe to be on the streets,” she said. “He will hurt people again. He will kill people again.”

Thompson echoed these remarks when he urged Kimbler to sentence Ramsay to life without parole. He noted that Ramsay stored the images of Douglas’ death on his phone in a secret file called “dark” with the password “murder” and looked at them multiple times.

“It was cold, it was calculated, it was purposeful,” Thompson said. “By his own admission, if he hadn’t been stopped, he would have killed again.”

Ramsay apologized for what he did in a brief statement he read before he was sentenced. He said he doesn’t know how to explain what happened or why.

“I’d take it back in a heartbeat if I could,” he said. “I feel terrible for what I’ve done and I will never do anything like that again … I constantly life in regret and shame because of it.”

Stephanie Warsmith is a staff reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal.

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